


Tales from the Borderlands 2: The Post-Epilogue

by cherrylime



Category: Borderlands, Tales from the Borderlands - Fandom, borderlands: the pre-sequel
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Car Chase, F/F, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Time Travel, fiona being amazing, in-franchise crossover, more tags to come, rhys being himself
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-06
Updated: 2016-08-27
Packaged: 2018-05-25 00:19:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 14,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6172498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherrylime/pseuds/cherrylime
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Vault of the Traveler transported Fiona and Rhys to Elpis during the events at the start of the Pre-Sequel.  Eventually Rhys and Timothy make out while everyone else tries to figure out what's going on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Is it the friends you make along the way?

**Author's Note:**

> Everyone knows that the ending of Tales was ridiculous so here's my (self-indulgent) take on what happens after.

"Would... you like to do the honors?" Rhys said, looking at Fiona. She deserved this, after everything he’d put her through in the past few months.

Fiona smiled, "It’s the last one... it's only right that we both open it.” She shrugged, “That's the best part."

"I was kinda hoping you'd say that." Rhys said and matched her smile with a grin.  


He couldn’t believe that his adventure was coming to an end. After this, after climbing the stairs of the Vault of the Traveler with Fiona and opening the vault treasure, Rhys would finally return to some measure of normalcy. However out of his element he was on Pandora, at least the comfortable and familiar mantle of “company man” would be returning to him very soon.  


Together, they placed their hands on the vault treasure. The lid opened slowly, although from their angle it was hard to tell what was inside. Rhys didn’t notice he’d been holding his breath until he gasped. A hot, bright flash of light enveloped the both of them and they disappeared.  
\--  
The battlefield was picked clean of loot when Janey Springs posed a question to her gaggle of Vault Hunters. "Say, where’s Fiona and that tall fella?" 

"I think I saw them run off to the vault," Vaughn said, inspecting a shield of Tediore make. "Why did we let them go in there by themselves, again? It's all of our treasure, after all."

"Well, let's stop babbling and get in there and get our share, yeah?" Janey urged. All of the vault hunters followed after her.

The vault of the traveler was imposingly spectacular. It stood tall over all of them, the golden surface of it rippling with alien energy. Even the seasoned vault hunters stood for a moment in front of it, in awe. 

They entered the vault together, but there wasn't any sign of Fiona or Rhys inside.

Gortys called out their names, but didn't get a response. Loaderbot picked her up and started climbing the steps. "Maybe they left a note," he said.

There were no traces of Fiona or Rhys at the top of the stairs. Everyone crowded onto the treasure platform, standing well away from the closed vault treasure. Sasha pushed her way to the front with Vaughn at her heels.

“Is something amiss?/Perhaps your two friends have left/Run off together?” Zer0 asked. 

“Fiona would never leave me, or money, behind without saying anything. Something’s not right here.” Sasha scrutinized the vault treasure and reached out to touch it with her good hand.

Athena blocked Sasha’s hand before it could reach the vault treasure. “Maybe you shouldn’t touch that. We don’t know what that actually is.”

“What’s happened to them?” Gortys wailed, “Oh no, I knew this vault thing was a bad idea.”

"Oh my god, do you- do you think it vaporized them? Was this some kind of trap?" Vaughn took a tiny step back, hiding behind Sasha. 

Athena crossed her arms. "Should’ve known that a giant teleporting monster wouldn’t be the last of our problems today."

"Well, it was certainly the last of yours,” Janey looked sharply at Athena. "I'm not letting you get vaporized too, not before our wedding."

“Nobody is getting vaporized!” Sasha snapped. “And no one got vaporized either,” she added, more gently. She slapped her hand down on the rough stone exterior. Nothing happened. She pulled hard at the lid, but the solid stone stayed firmly in place. Vaughn joined her, but even their combined efforts made no progress in opening the lid.

“Wherever they are/” Zer0 mused, “It could be related to/the vault’s strange nature.”

“Anyone know how we can find out more about this vault?” Sasha said and then looked pointedly at Athena and Zer0. “Vault hunters?”

“Hey, I just hunt them,” Athena replied. Zer0 nodded sagely in agreement. A smiley face flashed across their helmet. 

“Maybe I can try to recover something from Hyperion’s computer systems,” Vaughn suggested. “They got pretty trashed but there might still be something useful on there if I get them working again.”

\--

The all-consuming bright light filled her vision. A sudden change in pressure caused her ears to pop, painfully. She gasped, but nothing seemed to fill her lungs. 

Fiona grabbed Rhys' hand and ran before she was certain where she was. Rocky, desolate cliffs stood tall before them. She steered for a garage set into the dusty grey stone, its entrance shimmering oasis blue. Its safety was dubious at best, but at the moment anywhere seemed more welcoming than the airless vacuum they were in now. Each of her strides was too long, like she was moving in low gravity. Rhys dangled along behind, stumbling over the pointed toes of his skag leather boots. 

Wherever they were, it wasn't Pandora. The single familiar sight did nothing to settle Fiona's adrenaline-spiked nerves. 

Far above, Hyperion's glass and steel monstrosity observed them impassively. 

\--

Together, they stumbled through a rippling threshold into the pressurized, oxygenated garage. Rhys fell to the ground. Fiona managed to stay upright, supporting herself against a wall. She'd hardly managed to get her breath back before she turned to Rhys.

“The hell-” Fiona panted, “are we?" She grabbed the collar of Rhys’ shirt and pulled him upright. 

He gasped for air several times, breathing heavily. "Looks like... Elpis."

"How did we get on the moon? Where's Sasha? What happened to the treasure?" 

"Why are you asking me? I'm just as confused as you are." Rhys scowled, pulling away from Fiona's grip. He did his best to brush the dry, clinging moon dust from his black suit. "Ugh, it feels like my eyes are going to pop. I always hated coming here for Hyperion. Somehow, it’s worse than Pandora.”

Fiona took a step forward, looking out across the horizon past the oxygen barrier. “Pandora does have a breathable atmosphere, at least.” 

“There’s something to put on the brochure. ‘Pandora: it’s got an atmosphere!’” 

“Rhys, shut up and come tell me what I’m looking at right now.”

Face still scrunched up in irritation, he joined her at the threshold. Rhys’ face fell. “Helios… is back in the sky,” he managed. An uncomfortable wave of horror and nostalgia crashed over him. “And it looks like it’s under construction. Hyperion finished building that six years ago.” 

Out of the corner of her eye, Fiona spotted two figures approaching from the slope below. “I think someone’s coming. Hide!”

Rhys ignored her- transfixed by the sight of Helios. 

“Move,” she hissed, pushing him. “Do you want to get shot? I don’t think trespassing is legal on the moon.”

Snapping out of it, Rhys resisted. “Wait, look, it’s- it’s Springs!” 

Fiona turned and got a better look at the approaching pair. “Who’s with her?” She squinted against the sunlight. “Is that… Handsome Jack?” 

Rhys backed up, fast. With one big step he lost his balance, slipping backwards on his heels. Stumbling, he slammed the back of his head against the sharp, metal edge of a cargo crate, knocking himself out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I also want to throw a huge thank you to my excellent and wonderful beta, featheryfire, because without her I can safely say that this fic would not exist.


	2. Thank you for being a friend

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Vaughn's going to think about how he thought Rhys was dead for awhile there so this chapter contains slight mentions of the Jack confrontation scene in Episode 5, but nothing explicit.

Janey Springs bounced to a stop once she’d entered the garage, her Oz kit disengaging as it detected a positive atmosphere. She considered them for a moment, while Handsome Jack leaned heavily against the wall gasping for breath. Like Fiona and Rhys, he’d been out on the moon’s surface without an Oz kit.

“Who are you? What do you think you’re doing in my house?”

“Don't you recognize me?” Fiona asked. “You know, that whole 'Vault of the Traveler' thing? Big monster versus giant robot battle? You and your girlfriend helped us defeat the vault monster and we were all supposed to get rich beyond our wildest dreams? Is none of this ringing a bell?”

"Haven't got any girlfriends at the moment," Janey said testily. "And I certainly haven't been involved in any giant monster battles. Now, again, who are either of you and what are you doing in here?” 

“I don’t think you’re going to believe me, but I can explain.” 

“Well?” Springs said.

“Well-” Fiona began. 

Rhys groaned, dragging himself up into a sitting position. He clutched the back of his head with his organic hand. “Oh my god, Fiona, I think I’m bleeding.”

He turned his head in Fiona’s direction, “Can you see it?”

Fiona looked back up at Jack, who was peering curiously at Rhys over Springs’ shoulder. Rhys followed her gaze. 

“H-H-Handsome Jack,” Rhys said, frozen in place. 

“That’s my name,” Jack replied.

“No- No, you’re dead-you died. Twice! I killed you! I took down all of Helios to kill you, tore myself apart,” Rhys raised his voice. “How the hell are you alive? How is Helios back in the sky?”

“Buddy, I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Jack said. “And, uh, nobody’s taken down Helios, not that I’m aware of. Not yet. It’s still right there.” He gestured toward the station behind him, hanging low in Elpis’ orbit. 

Rhys fell silent.

The tension in the room was thicker than a kraggon’s skull, but Springs took a swing at it. “Well?”

“It’s a funny story, actually. You can call me Fiona, and this is Rhys. I’m a vault hunter and Rhys is between jobs at the moment.” Fiona took a deep breath and recounted the story, beginning with the botched deal with August and ending with the missing vault treasure and their wild dash into Springs’ garage.

Springs listened and when Fiona was done she said, “You’re right, I don’t believe you.”

She turned to Jack. “What about you? Why did Helios shoot you down to the moon?”

“Zarpedon and the Lost Legion have taken control of Helios, they have a jamming signal set up somewhere on Elpis and I’m here to destroy it.”

“Wait, wait- Did you say Zarpedon is up there? Colonel Tungsteena Zarpedon?”

“I’m assuming so.” Jack said. His typical swagger seemed to be losing momentum the more he spoke. “Didn’t manage to catch her full name, or anything.” 

Rhys groaned, rubbing the back of his head with his organic hand and finally getting up off the floor.

“Well, I wasn’t planning on having guests over, but I can’t exactly toss all of you out to asphyxiate, now can I?” Janey laughed. “There’s a building north-east of here, I think I left a couple old Oz kits in there. They’re yours if you clear the place out of kraggons.”

She hesitated, looking over her three uninvited guests warily. “You people know how to handle a gun, right?”

Fiona and Jack nodded.

Springs looked pointedly at Rhys.

“I know my way around a stun baton,” he offered.

Fiona stepped in. “He doesn’t know how to shoot.”

“Don’t think I’d trust him with a gun anyways. He can stay here and help me with something else.” 

Rhys caught Fiona’s eye with an expression that looked like he wanted to say something to her. Unfortunately, Springs was already leading him farther into the house, with a slightly too-firm grip on his organic arm, so whatever he wanted would have to wait. 

\--

“Hey, have you made any progress on the computers?” Sasha said as she joined Vaughn and Yvette. After the discovery of Fiona and Rhys’ disappearance, the Children of Helios had set up a sheltered space where the group could start trying to hook up parts of the shattered mainframe to their crude electrical generators. The space was dark, and cool, one of the rare areas of the wreckage where the broken pieces of Helios had puzzled themselves back together in some ill-fitting semblance of an interior. It was after sunset, but even during the day the otherwise relentless Pandoran sun couldn’t find its way inside here. 

“Not much, I think.” Vaughn said. “Yvette knows more about this than I do, since I only ever worked with the numbers and she worked with Rhys in manufacturing. Neither of us are sure where they’d even store this kind of data if they had it, much less what kind of outrageous security we’re probably dealing with if we get the computers working in the first place.”

“We’re not sure who was next in command after Jack, who would’ve had that info after he died,” Yvette clarified. Bare light bulbs cast grainy yellow light across the room, throwing jerky shadows on the walls and floors. 

Sasha raised an eyebrow. “You’re not sure who your own CEO was?”

“Hyperion power hierarchy was complicated, to say the least. It was always shifting around, whenever someone got strangled or vented into space. We knew who our bosses were, and their bosses, but not much after that.” Yvette said. “No one else ever filled that position as solidly or for as long as Jack did.”

Sasha looked around at the tangling cables carpeting the floor and the smudged, dimly glowing screens uncertainly. “So, you two really think you can get these working again?” 

“So far our biggest problem is all the sand,” Vaughn said. “It’s gotten into everything.” He moved from one screen to a pile of computer parts sitting on a grimy desk near the door. On his way, one of the cables snaking across the floor caught his foot. He stumbled gracelessly and, not for the first time that day, nearly fell over.

“We’re planning on going to Jack’s office if we don’t find anything in the main system.” Yvette said. “It might have been turned into an exhibit, but the stuff he had access to might still be available.”

Sasha’s walkie-talkie fizzed, a garbled message from Athena about bandits at the northern perimeter crackled out. “Duty calls.” She said, placing a gentle hand on Vaughn’s shoulder, steadying him. “Let me know right away if you find something.”

Vaughn smiled. “Of course.” 

\---

The Children of Helios avoided Jack’s office at every opportunity. Before Vaughn learned that Rhys had survived, he’d declared it the possible site of Rhys’ death. Vaughn assumed the worst after finding the mangled cybernetics and copious amounts of blood. There was also a stubborn rumor floating around that the place was haunted by the vengeful spirit of Handsome Jack’s AI. Vaughn dismissed this right off, but there was no doubt that the broken shell of Jack’s office was eerie. He’d only been there once with Yvette to collect Rhys’ effects to bury out in the desert. 

Some of the Children of Helios had wanted to build a shrine to Rhys using the discarded cybernetics, but Vaughn had firmly asserted that that was never going to happen. He could put up with the creepy headless vandalized statue of Jack, but that was where he had to draw the line. 

All that had been ages ago, really only months, but the time felt immeasurably longer. Vaughn wondered, fleetingly, if he would have to bury his friend a second time. He swiped another handful of sand off the top of the desk, the grit squeaking quietly against the metal surface.

It was now even later than it had been before, only a little while before sunrise if the stinging dryness of his eyes was anything to go by. He’d pulled all nighters like this with Rhys, back in college. At least back then he’d had coffee.

“Do you think they’re alright? Definitely not vaporized, or anything?” Vaughn asked, looking over his shoulder at Yvette.

“You know Rhys, he’s always getting himself into ridiculous situations and somehow always coming back out of them just fine. Anyway, he’s with Fiona. From what I’ve heard, if anyone can keep him safe, it’s her.”

Vaughn managed to smile. “That’s true.”

“Now come on, we’ve made decent progress for our first night. It’s definitely time to go to bed.” She got up, stretching stiff muscles, and made her way to the door. 

“Oh man, I thought you’d never say that,” Vaughn said and followed her out. 

The sleeping quarters of the Children of Helios were comprised of what had once been the apartment block when the station hadn’t been a harsh metallic wreck in the desert. A nearly endless spread of rooms upon rooms, all identical in function and layout, had broken into an incomprehensible spill of corners, ceilings, and floors. Vaughn had made a go of trying to find his and Rhys’ old apartment, almost relieved when he hadn’t been able to locate it in the knotted metal.

He and Yvette split, headed to each of their respective sleeping places. Sasha and Vaughn slept in an empty moonshot container, cordoned off from the rest of the space with threadbare scraps from an old rug that didn’t do a particularly good job of keeping out the chilling cold of a desert night. All of the Children of Helios slept near them, in the large room that held the moonshot container, in alcoves or makeshift tents or lean-tos. He’d offered Yvette a place inside the container, but she preferred a sheltered ledge she’d found tucked into one of the walls. The height was comforting, she’d explained.

The outside of the container, much like most of the flat surfaces in the room, were painted with spiraling white designs. Vaughn wasn’t sure which of the Children was responsible, but he was glad for anything that broke up the dusty grey monotony of the wreckage.

Sasha was already sleeping, on the far end of the container. Vaughn settled into his bed, a surprisingly comfortable pile of scavenged scraps and a beat up Hyperion issue foam mattress the crash hadn’t completely pulverized. Despite Yvette’s encouraging words and his own tiredness, he wasn’t sure that he would be able to sleep very well that night.


	3. Tool time

Fiona took a deep breath and leapt across the oxygen barrier, out of the garage and into the unforgiving vacuum of space. She oriented herself in the direction Springs had indicated, Jack following a few bouncy steps behind. Having him at her back wasn’t something she particularly liked.

The old building was only a few low gravity jumps away. Springs’ voice came on over their ECHOs as they approached. 

“Turn on that oxygen generator outside and then go find the Oz kits. If the door’s locked go ahead and smash the locks, hardly doing me any good anyway since the kraggons are still getting in.”

Fiona and Jack made short work of Springs’ instructions and made their way inside. Something smelled strongly and freshly of animal, reminding Fiona of the stink that came off the skags that wandered Hollow Point at night. 

Jack saw the kraggon first, managing to say “What is th-” before Fiona drew her gun. Two bullets took it down, but a pair of larger ones slunk out of the shadows.

She finished off the first one while Jack took out the other. 

“That was messy,” Jack said, looking at the carnage uncomfortably. 

Fiona considered him for a moment. “You’re not at all like how I imagined Handsome Jack.”

“You know, I’ve only been at this job less than a day and I feel like I’m going to be getting that a lot.”

“What do you mean you’ve only been working at Hyperion since today?”

Jack shuffled his feet nervously. “Don’t spread it all over but I’m actually just Jack’s body double. Seemed a bit ridiculous to me for a programmer to have a body double, but with all that ‘I killed you’ talk that other guy you’re with was going on about, maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea.”

“Wait, so you’re not Jack?” 

“I mean, I’m Jack now. Or a near perfect copy of him, anyway. The, uh, person I was before doesn’t exactly, well, exist on paper anymore.” 

“Hopefully they’re paying you a fortune.”

“Oh yeah, they are. It’s going to end up being enough to cover my student loans! I only have to be Jack for twenty years, which is much less time than it would have taken to pay them off myself, with interest.” Jack grinned, looking genuinely pleased. “Plus, they’ve told me that they’ll probably be able to put my face back the way it was.”

“Kraggons dealt with?” Springs voice chirped over the ECHO. “Great! Grab those Oz kits and come on back.”

\---

Springs leaned over a scattered collection of broken grinder parts. Grabbing one, she examined it before settling in to work “Will you hand me that pair of atomiconfig micropliers? They’re over there on my toolbox.”

Without hesitation, Rhys plucked the tool out of the pile and brought it to Springs. She looked up at him from the pliers in his hand, looking almost impressed. 

“So, you at least know your way around a toolbox.” She took the pliers. 

Rhys nodded, straightening the sleeve of his jacket over his cybernetic arm. “Built this arm myself.” Despite trying, he failed at not sounding smug. “And the eye and neural port.” He did neglect to mention that it was while he was stranded alone in an abandoned Atlas base, short an arm and an eye. 

“You look and dress like a Hyperion stooge but I’ve never known one to do anything himself, not if it involved, you know, actual work.” Springs looked up from her grinder parts. “Not sure why you and your partner are trying to pull such a weird story on me. Are you two normally such bad liars?”

“As unbelievable as it sounds, Fiona wasn’t lying.” 

Springs sent Rhys to fetch another tool. “It’s a terrible work of fiction. Trust me, I dabble in children’s books. First of all, I’d never have anything to do with a vault. Personally, I’d rather scavenge the gear from people foolish enough to take on, how did Fiona put it, a ‘giant teleporting vault guardian’ than get involved with any of that myself.”

“It happened,” Rhys insisted.

“At least you’re consistent,” Springs said distractedly, elbow deep in a particularly beat-up grinder mechanism.

Before Rhys could reply, Fiona and Jack returned, Oz kits in place. 

“Thanks for getting rid of the kraggons.” Springs pulled her hands out of the grinder parts. “I don’t have much, seeing as I wasn’t expecting any guests, let alone 3 of them, but I’ll scrape something together for dinner. Wait around in here until I’ve got something ready.” She went off, wiping engine grease off her hands with an old rag. 

The three of them stood together around the table awkwardly for a moment. Not-exactly-Jack did his best to look interested in the barren landscape through the window.

Rhys caught Fiona’s attention and motioned towards the garage. 

“We’ll be right back,” she said to Not-Jack. 

 

Fiona followed Rhys out to a corner of the garage, out of sight. He placed his hands on her shoulders and looked her dead in the eye. “We’re in the past.” 

“Gosh, how’d you figure that one out? Was it Helios back in the sky or Handsome Jack back in the flesh?”

“I get that it’s probably obvious to you by now but I just wanted to, I don’t know, say it out loud,” he ventured defensively, crossing his arms. “I guess by Vault of the Traveler it meant-”

“Time travel,” Fiona finished for him. 

“That guy is definitely not Handsome Jack.” Rhys changed the subject. “I think having that asshole in my head for weeks is enough for me to kind of be an expert on ‘people who are Handsome Jack’ and that guy’s not it.”

“He’s a body double.” Fiona said. 

Rhys nodded. “I think I’ve heard about this one, he was Jack’s first copy.”

“He had more than one?”

“Oh yeah, endless amounts more once he got to be the CEO, pretty much. A lot of people had it out for Handsome Jack while he was still alive. He wasn’t exactly the type to make friends.”

“What else do you know about this?”

Not-Jack peeked into the garage. “Springs said that the food’s ready.”

Fiona looked meaningfully at Rhys. He shrugged, apologetically.

Back in house, the worktable had been hastily cleared of grinder parts and wiped clean of engine grease. Springs had produced a simple meal, comprised of chewy dark bread, spicy, homemade kraggon jerky, and just a bit of hard cheese. The jerky made Rhys’ eyes water. 

The sun didn’t set, and wouldn’t set for a long time. Springs told them that a lunar day lasted substantially longer than a day on Pandora. It wouldn’t be night for another week and half. 

Springs set them up in a windowless store room. She didn’t have any spare sleeping bags, but she tossed the three of them a big armful of thick flannel blankets and told them to figure it out.


	4. Going the distance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What's up, here's chapter 4 (a fav so far tbh)! a CL4P-TP makes an appearance bc featheryfire loves them (for some reason lmao) 
> 
> I saw this confirming that Zer0's pronouns are they/them so I went back and edited in the correct ones into previous chapters (feel free to call me out if I missed one) and they'll be referred to by those from here on out! :)
> 
> the next chapter is about Vaughn/Sasha so get ready for that too haha

Fiona was the last to wake up. Rhys was still sitting at the worktable, turning his Oz kit over and over in his hands. He pushed a plate of the bread from last night over to her. Nearby, a pot of coffee was sitting on a small, grimy hotplate. Fiona poured herself a mug. At the moment, neither Springs or Not-Jack were in sight. 

“So, where would we go to get something that could get us back to the present?” She said, smearing butter on a slice of bread.

Rhys put the Oz kit on the table. “Probably Helios.” 

“Hyperion has time travel tech up there?” 

“Well, no, of course not. But, neither does anyone else. Traveling through time isn’t supposed to be something that people can do, Fiona.” He circled the metal rim of the port in his temple with an index finger, sounding more defeated than irritated. “Maybe the only way back is to try and summon the Vault of the Traveler again.” 

Fiona looked at him incredulously. “Let’s try Helios first. How do we get up there from Elpis?” She took a sip of coffee. It was strong and bitter, but it reminded her of the stuff Felix used to make. 

“No idea. To be honest, I’m not even entirely sure where we are on the moon.”

Before Fiona could reply, Springs came out of the garage, with the doppelganger close behind.

“Sorry, Not-Jack, but without that key there’s no other way into Concordia.”

Not-Jack smoothed his coiffed hair nervously. “You’re sure there’s no other way? Like, at all?” 

“Quite sure,” she said.

“What are you two talking about?” Rhys asked.

“I need to get to that spaceport up north, it’s called Concordia. I think? But Springs says that I can’t get there without a moon buggy.”

Springs sat down at the worktable and poured herself some coffee. “There’s a nasty ravine between here and Concordia now, ever since the Crackening.”

Fiona tapped Rhys’ Oz kit. “Couldn’t you make the jump using the Oz kit’s boost?” 

“Well, you can try making the jump like that,” Springs said, “if you feel like risking a swim in lava, but I won’t try and stop you.” 

Not-Jack shuffled from foot to foot. “That sounds pretty dangerous to me. Just point me in the direction of that digistruct key, Springs, and I’ll go get that first.” 

“We don’t really have the time to wait for him to fetch your thing.” Fiona said, finishing off her breakfast. 

Ten million dollars were burning a hole in Fiona’s pocket. After trying to recruit Felix before the vault monster battle, Fiona hadn’t had a free moment alone with Sasha to hand over her cut of the money. 

Fiona clicked her Oz kit into place on her shoulder, Rhys following her lead. 

“Feel free to come back here if that plan doesn’t work out.” Springs offered, cheerily. 

\--

The three of them made their way to the ravine. Rhys stuck close to Fiona, still a bit put off by Not-Jack’s perfect likeness to his boss. Not-Jack stuck close to the both of them, though, seemingly intimidated by the kraggons prowling nearby. 

“So, what’s your name, anyway?” Fiona said. “Or, what was it before you started working for Jack?”

“Sorry, I’m legally bound not to tell anyone. But, um, it does rhyme with ‘Jimothy,’ if you really want to know.” 

“Timothy,” Rhys said. “That’s nice. Better than Jack, anyway.”

Timothy laughed. “It’s not all bad, at least I’m getting paid.” 

“We got kraggons,” Fiona said, nodding her head to the left. 

Timothy raised his gun, “Got one in my sights.” The crack of gunfire echoed across the rough terrain. 

“There’s more approaching.” Fiona noted, taking aim.

Rhys cowered behind both of them, defenseless. 

“We’re surrounded!” Fiona took a step back, running into Rhys. “Let’s get out of here, come on.”

The group backed up, finding themselves between the precipice of the ravine and a very angry, fiery pack of kraggons. 

Fiona, Rhys, and Timothy looked over the edge, down to the river of molten stone boiling sluggishly at the bottom. 

“Looks like Springs might be right.” Rhys squeezed his hands together. 

Timothy shook his head emphatically, his eyes darting away from the long drop down. “Springs was definitely right.” Jack’s body double managed to say, suddenly looking very pale. “I’m going to go get that key instead.” 

“Are you sure? There’s a lot of kraggons back there.” Rhys said. 

Timothy took a large low-gravity bounce back from the edge. “You two go on ahead, I can handle them.” 

Fiona gauged the distance from their side of the ravine to the other. “We have to make a decision, Rhys.” 

“Could we do it together?” He held out his organic hand entreatingly. 

“Fine,” Fiona took his hand. “Do you have enough oxygen to make the jump?” 

“Yeah, I think so.”

Fiona geared up to make the jump, taking a few steps back to get a good start. With a running leap, she launched off the edge and across the chasm. Rhys clutched her hand hard.

“Easy there, tiger. I’m glad you didn’t offer your robot arm.”

His grip didn’t lessen. Fiona risked at glance at Rhys.

“Keep your eyes on the prize, alright? Stop looking at the lava.” 

Fiona engaged her Oz kit’s boost function, dragging Rhys along behind. Seemingly snapped out of it, Rhys also boosted, sending them over the other edge of the ravine and crashing into dusty, solid ground. 

Rhys brushed at the dust on his suit irritably. “Maybe Timothy had a point about that being dangerous.”

“So now you’re agreeing with Not-Jack?” Fiona teased.

“He said his name was Timothy. And I mean I panicked! I am carrying around a few extra pounds of steel,” Rhys held his cybernetic arm out for her, wiggling his fingers. “I’m heavier.”

“Whatever you say.” 

Rhys hardly had time to respond before they both noticed more kraggons stalking the dusty plain between them and Concordia. Fiona pulled Rhys behind a rocky outcrop.

“We really need to teach you about guns.” Fiona said, reloading her pistol.

“Hey, the only thing I don’t know about guns is how to use one.”  
 

Fiona rolled her eyes. “Is there really that much else to know? You shoot them.”

“What do you think I was doing at well-known weapons manufacturer Hyperion before this whole vault thing?”

“Being assistant vice janitor?”

Rhys scowled. “I meant before that. I helped design the guns, making sure everything worked together the way it was intended to.”

“Regardless, you really need to learn how to shoot.” Fiona dispatched a kraggon, sending several more barreling in their direction. 

She fired a few more rounds, ducking out of the way of the kraggons’ fireballs. 

“Fiona!” A kraggon pebble snuck around the other side of the outcrop and growled at Rhys. 

He kicked at it, stunning it for a moment, and then landed another kick. The kraggon coiled up and disintegrated, leaving a pile of ash. 

“Not bad,” Fiona said. 

“Can we please just get to Concordia now?" 

\-- 

As they approached the entrance to Concordia, Rhys stopped Fiona with his cybernetic arm. An expectant looking CU5TM-TP stood at the top of the stairs, in front of a rippling force field that barred their way into Concordia. 

“Wait, Fiona, that’s a CL4P-TP. Let me do the talking. Those things were all over Helios when I first got hired and I had to work with them for years. They’re all completely insufferable.” 

Fiona pushed past his arm. “Rhys, I grew up on Pandora. I know how to deal with Claptraps.”

She approached the door. The CU5TM-TP held up a thin metal hand.

“That’s far enough, you two.” With a dull buzzing, they rotated their raised hand until their palm faced upward. “I don’t have all day, so hand over your entry papers.”

Fiona frowned, patting her pockets. She looked earnestly at Rhys, who mimicked the charade unconvincingly. 

“Pedal to the metal, lady! Do you have the papers or not?”

“You know, my friend and I just stepped out to stretch our legs and we must have left the papers in our apartment.”

The CU5TM-TP shrugged. “No papers, no entry.” 

“Can’t you look the other way? Just this once,” Fiona asked sweetly.

“Oh no, keeping people without their papers out of Concordia is always my favorite part of the day.” The robot put their hands on their hips proudly. “It makes me feel powerful.”

“Isn’t there something we can do for you? My buddy here’s a mechanic.” 

Beside her, Rhys looked offended.

Fiona continued. “There must be something that’s troubling you, a loose wire or maybe a faulty spark plug?” 

“Well, some of my hydraulics do seem to be operating more slowly than I would like.”

“Why don’t you take a look, Rhys,” Fiona suggested.

Rhys rolled his eyes. The CU5TM-TP popped open the maintenance hatch on their back and Rhys sat down cross-legged behind them. He began a rudimentary diagnostics exam, reaching inside hesitantly with his cybernetic arm. 

“That tickles,” the CU5TM-TP said. 

After a few minutes, Rhys removed his arm. The sleek silver digits were darkened with engine grease. 

“Seems like you’ve got a clogged air filter,” he said, as he looked around for something to wipe his hand on that wasn’t his suit. He eyed Fiona’s pants leg for a long moment before thinking better of it. 

“What do you know, we’ve got one of those lying around at our place.” Fiona said. “If you let us by we’ll bring it to you.” 

“I shouldn’t,” the CU5TM-TP began, uncertain. “But, it’s not every day that somebody offers to help me. Alright, I’ll let you two in.” They disengaged the force field and held out a cordial arm. “Welcome to Concordia.”

Fiona moved to step past them, but the CU5TM-TP went on. “You’ve been cleared for decontamination. Please proceed into the doorway on your left.”

Fiona and Rhys walked past the robot. As they neared the doorway, she looked over her shoulder. The CU5TM-TP had turned around, so Fiona tugged Rhys off to the right and farther into Concordia instead.


	5. How do I get you alone?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We're finally getting to the rarepair! Sasha/Vaughn (Vausha?) is a lovely ship and I'm super excited to write more of it :) There'll be more blatantly shippy stuff the next time we see them ~

When Vaughn woke up it was still dark. Sasha and the Children of Helios were gone, attending to their daily duties. He pushed back the rug covering the entrance and peeked out into the sleeping space. The fires that signaled that the Children were up and about were burning warmly along the edges of the room. 

Vaughn still struggled to accustom himself to the ninety hour long solar days on Pandora. Back on Helios, the artificial days had been 25 hours long and Vaughn, despite having lived on Pandora for months, still wasn’t accustomed the longer solar period. Even now during the summer, the nights lasted upwards of forty hours. It had been almost eight Helios days since he and Yvette started work on the computers, but only two on Pandora. 

Noticing that he hadn’t let his hair out of its bun last night before falling asleep, he pulled it loose and ran his fingers through a few times. Looking himself over, Vaughn found that he’d slept in his clothes. His pauldron and bracers were still on, as well as his boots.

At least he was dressed for the day.

After one last absentminded comb through his hair, he worked all the strands together into a braid. Once he finished, he got up slowly and stretched the stiffness from his joints. Leaving the sleeping space, he made his way along well-trodden trails in the unorganized alleys of the wreck of Helios. The unplanned passages were still sometimes difficult to navigate, especially in the dark. 

Eventually the path opened up ahead of him, bringing Vaughn into the clearing that housed the cooking pavilion. This was one of the few structures that he and the Children had constructed themselves. It was comprised of re-purposed girders and dented sheet metal built into a squat rectangular shape, with fire pits dug into the sand of the floor. 

People congregated here and there, around tables and on blankets, preparing food that hunting or gathering parties brought in from beyond the wreck. Generally on the menu were bladeflower plants and various roots. Meat was rarer, mostly from skags and rakk, but hunting parties did sometimes bring in a sandworm.

Vaughn spotted Sasha at one of the fires, sitting with Janey, and grinned when they called him over.

“I swear you’d sleep all night if you could get away with it.”

Vaughn groaned overdramatically. “How are you supposed to know when to get up if it’s dark outside all day?”

“You’ll get used to it.” Sasha said while nudging him playfully. “If you want, I can wake you when I get up.”

“That sounds really tempting, but if I’m staying up late with Yvette working on the computers, I’m definitely not going to let you wake me in up in time for morning patrol.”

Sasha shrugged. “Your loss.”

Off in the distance the sound of a singular gunshot burst from nowhere, echoing harshly against the metal of the wreck. A roosting group of rakk took to the air with a clamor of loud howling. 

There was less than a moment of breathless silence in the pavilion. The only movement came from the quivering light of the fires. 

The only movement came from the quivering light of the fires.

Somewhere, the crackling volley of a laser replied before the night air was filled with the sound of gunfire. Sasha jumped to her feet, followed by Vaughn and Janey. 

The Children of Helios rushed out of the pavilion. 

While most small-time squabbles had been handled with finger-gun battles, that didn’t mean the Hyperion employees hadn’t seen their fair share of actual gunfights.

Most of them slipped into spaces between the shattered remnants of the space station. Post-crash Helios was jammed full of hiding spaces and secret rooms, places for those that couldn’t join the fray to stay out of sight. 

Most small-time squabbles on Hyperion had been handled with finger gun battles, but that didn’t mean that Hyperion employees hadn’t seen their fair share of actual gunfights.

Only a few of the Children, however, could actually use a gun. A handful of them, carrying weapons, found their way to Sasha, Vaughn, and Janey.

“Janey, could you make sure that everyone else is alright?” Vaughn looked to the Children standing around them. “All of you go with her. Keep each other safe.”

Janey nodded, heading off away from the sound of the gunfire. The Children fell into step behind her. 

Sasha and Vaughn turned to investigate the attack. Vaughn startled at the sudden appearance of a figure in the darkness and clutched Sasha’s arm in surprise.

“You have to stop doing that, Zer0!” Vaughn said.

Sasha rolled her eyes while Zer0 shrugged. 

“Athena sent me. / Bandits have infiltrated / the perimeter.” They gestured for Sasha and Vaughn to follow them. 

“What’s happening?” Sasha asked. 

Zer0 led them into the dark passages of the wreck in the direction of the gunfire. They moved fast, Vaughn and Sasha jogging to keep up. Vaughn pulled a torch off the wall before they went too deeply into the unlit tunnels ahead.

“It seems like they are / here to try and raid supplies.”

Vaughn recognized the corridor they were passing through. “Don’t tell me that they’ve gotten into the computer room.”

“Unfortunately / that does appear to be what / has happened tonight.”

The gunfire was close. Vaughn could make out voices now between the booming. Through an opening in the wreckage ahead of them, the flash of fired shots gleamed across the metal in jerky intervals.

An errant grenade bounced out of the fray and rolled to a stop at the mouth of the corridor. Zer0, several steps ahead, lunged past it and onto the battlefield. The grenade beeped urgently. 

With an ear-ringing explosion, the grenade went off and unsteadied the tenuous supports that held up the walls. The wreck groaned, long and low, as heavy fragments of Helios scraped across each other. 

“Shit.”


	6. Just the two of us

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More Sasha/Vaughn!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some quick stuff:
> 
> 1\. Nobody dies in this fic and all the tagged ships make it to the end happy and healthy and together :) I'm not about that kind of angst w this fic.  
> 2\. Im graduating undergrad in a few days but i've got most of the next chapter ready so it shouldn't take as long to get posted!

Sasha and Vaughn could see Zer0 for only a moment before everything around them shifted.

The abused wreck seemed to relax into the sections vaporized by the explosion and the squealing metal seemed to sigh as it lurched forward, finding relief in no longer needing to hold itself up.

The tangled space station buckled around them with the unmistakable sound of twisting metal, causing the hall to come smashing to the ground.

It was completely dark. Vaughn lay dazed on the floor, the aftermath of being knocked off his feet by the explosion and the sudden collapse. 

After an uncertain amount of time, he heard Sasha’s voice in the gloom. “Vaughn?” 

He was still trying to shake off the haziness to reply when she touched him.

“Shit, you better not be dead,” she whispered.

Vaughn stirred. 

“Are you are alright?” Sasha’s hand found his in the darkness. 

“I’m fine. A bit scraped up, maybe, but nothing bad.” Vaughn dragged himself into a sitting position. “What about you?”

“Just a few scratches as far as I can tell.”

Vaughn could taste blood in his mouth. There was a dull, stinging pain at his temple. The side of his face was wet when he ran the fingers of his free hand over it. “I think I’m bleeding.”

“Where? Is it bad?” Sasha leaned in closer and he could feel the warmth of her body near him. “You wouldn’t happen to have a light, would you?”

“Not that I’m aware of.” He replied.

“Hm- wait!” she said. “I’ve got something, I think.”

Vaughn didn’t recognize the next series of sounds, but he did recognize the sound of Sasha taking the safety off her gun. 

In an instant, the Maliwan SMG sprung to life. Its array of decorative lights cast a pool of soft purple light onto both of them. She held it up sideways, muzzle pointing away from both of them.

“Wow,” Sasha said, voice hoarse. “Don’t freak out or anything but that is a lot of blood.”

Vaughn looked at his blood-slick hand. “Oh, man. But head wounds usually bleed a lot, right?” 

“Here, I’m going to rip off a bit of cloth from the bottom of my shirt and you can use that to stop the bleeding.” Her hand left his as she ripped a thin strip from her shirt, then placed it into the palm of his hand.

He pressed the strip against his head gratefully. 

“Can you stand?” She asked.

“Yeah, I think so.”

Once they were both on their feet they shuffled slowly around, using the precarious light of the Maliwan to find their way.

“It’s going to be hard to see if there’s a way out, since its dark out there too.” Vaughn said.

“Maybe we can shoot our way out.” Sasha suggested, smiling down at him. 

Vaughn laughed. “Let’s save that for last.”

They walked the perimeter of the space carefully. 

“It looks like we’re trapped.” Sasha said as they finished their first lap.

“Maybe there’s something we can pull loose to make a gap big enough to escape.” Vaughn considered the overlapping metal sheets and chunks of debris that trapped them.  
After another walk around, they spotted the tire of what looked to be an upturned car that was almost completely buried in a huge pile of scrap. 

“If the car is still intact and we could get to the door, there might be a way out on the other side.” 

Sasha and Vaughn inspected the layers of debris that obscured the upturned car from view. Sasha shined the dim light of the Maliwan across the scuffed shreds of metal. 

“Do you think we can get to it without the ceiling coming down?” Vaughn asked, pushing some small bits of the wreck away from the ground in front of wall of junk.

“Let’s see what we can do.” Sasha left the gun on the ground and placed her hands on a chunk of scrap. Wordlessly, Vaughn moved to help her. Both of them, with as good of a grip on the scrap as they could get, pulled. 

The metal squealed as it was tore free, but the sound was quickly lost in the booming groan of the overall structure moving around them. They both froze, leaning toward each other until everything went quiet again. 

“Alright, so it didn’t like that.” Vaughn said.

“I can see more of the car now, so Helios is just going to have to suck it up.” Sasha reached for another crumpled piece of scrap. It was smaller and came out of the wall much more easily. 

 

The car door was locked. 

“Let me,” Vaughn said, gesturing to his feet. “Steel-toed boots.” 

He took hold of the metal body of the car and kicked hard at the window. The first hit didn’t break through, but he struck at it again. The safety glass shattered, spilling pebbly fragments all over the ground and ceiling of the car. 

Sasha crawled in first, taking the weak light of the Maliwan with her. Vaughn got on all fours behind her, but only went half-way into the car’s upturned cab.  
Ahead, Sasha squeezed through the crumpled window on the passenger side. The uneven weight of the wreck on top of the car had crushed down the other window and broken the glass. It was still just large enough to fit through, though.

Vaughn crawled into the car and out the other side, joining Sasha in a dark space very similar to the one they were just in.

“Do you know where we are?” She asked.

“No idea,” he replied.

The sounds of gunfire were louder again now that they were free of the cave-in. Sasha grabbed Vaughn’s hand, helping him to his feet, and held the gun up high, throwing dusky light across the floor. To their left, the car and the wreck glinted dully. Ahead and to the right was nothing but pitch blackness.

“Come on,” Sasha took a careful step forward. “We need to find Athena or Zer0 and get that generator back.”

They moved in the direction of the battle. Vaughn placed his free hand carefully on his pistol, a worn but faithful old Jakobs. 

Eventually the inky darkness gradually gave way to dark grey moonlight and the passageway opened into a larger space. In the distance, indistinguishable figures moved.

A bullet ricocheted off a chunk of the wreck with a noisy clang. Sasha ducked, pulling Vaughn down beside her.

Guns in hand, the Maliwan no longer serving as a flashlight, they crept forward to get a better look around.


	7. All his exes live on Elpis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back to Rhys and Fiona!! The Rhys/Tim stuff is coming up in the next chapter, promise ;)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whats up ! here some notes
> 
> 1\. i just graduated, so on your fic is now coming to you from a real live person who suddenly owns a diploma case
> 
> 2\. before we get too far into the time travel shenanigans, please note that i'm playing hard, fast, and loose with the science (if that wasn't already excruciatingly obvious, lmao). theorizing and coming up with real sci-fi explanations for stuff is fun but i'm really just here to make people kiss so this is going to be one of those "the time paradox works out because our heroes were already in a time loop where them being on elpis had always been what had happened" kinds of fics or more simply "the present BL universe is the way it is because rhys and fiona traveled back in time, so them being in the past doesn't change the future"
> 
> alright thanks !! enjoy the rhys & fiona snark festival

Concordia’s main hub opened up in front of them as they moved out of the spaceport’s entrance. 

The city was relatively empty. Plenty of its denizens roamed the streets, but it was hardly the colorful bastion of interstellar trade that Rhys remembered. If someone visited Elpis, they had probably arrived in Concordia. Lately, it didn’t seem like there were too many new arrivals. 

The spaceport on the edge of town was almost completely unoccupied. A single craft that looked like it was capable of interplanetary travel was moored in the port. A grizzled woman, apparently its pilot, sat on one of the tailfins peeling an apple, tossing the peels into the airless vacuum beyond the oxygen barrier below. 

Fiona approached. “Hey there,” she said. 

The pilot looked at her with disinterest.

“We were hoping to find a ride to Helios.”

“Helios space station?” The pilot barked a laugh, her worded tinged with a strong Elpis accent. “Do you two have a death wish? Hyperion or the Lost Legion or whoever’s up there right now is shooting down anything that gets too close to the station. You won’t find a spacefarer anywhere on this planet that’ll take you there, certainly not me.” 

“We can pay,” Fiona offered, trying not to sound hesitant. She wanted to keep Felix’s windfall as intact as possible for whatever she and her sister decided to do when this was all over. The end of this ordeal was a “when” to her, not an “if”. 

The pilot eyed them for a moment. “There isn’t any sum you could offer that would convince me to try and get anywhere near that death trap.”

\--

Moving away from the moored ship, Fiona and Rhys strolled around Concordia. 

“What about using one of these?” Fiona gestured to the tall fast travel station standing in the spaceport’s main hub.

“I definitely don’t have any of the necessary permissions to get us anywhere close to Helios anymore.” He tapped the back of his metal hand irritably. “Homebrew cybernetics, remember? Anyway, even if I did still have my Hyperion-issued tech installed, my employee login back then—I mean, right now—absolutely doesn’t have clearance to use off-station fast travel.”

Fiona glanced up at Helios. “Wait, are you up there?”

“No, I’m not,” Rhys scowled. “I wasn’t. Whatever. Hyperion evacuated all staff once the Legion had started getting a foothold on the station. Past-me is down on Pandora right now, unless he’s- I’m- already on my way back home to Eden-5 to stay with my parents until all the Legion stuff blows over.” 

“I bet your parents have a vacation home on Aquator too, don’t they?”

Rhys just gave her a dirty look. 

\--  
“How much money do you have on you away?” Rhys asked. “I’ve got a couple thousand from the fight with the Traveler, but it’s certainly not enough to cover a flight to Helios even if we could find anyone to take us.” 

“I’ve got a bit.” She said evasively. “The little bit I had on me before and whatever I picked up on the battlefield before we went into the vault.”

Fiona knew it was hypocritical to keep the money a secret from Rhys after all the flak she’d given him for keeping his particularly homicidal AI possession thing a secret, but as far as she was concerned this wasn’t her money to spend yet. This was for her and Sasha’s future. She’d spend it only if she had to. 

“Maybe we just need to bide our time, wait for this whole Legion thing to blow over.” Rhys suggested.

“There has to be some other way up to Helios that doesn’t involve getting a seat on a ship. We just have to look around.” Fiona said.

\--

A familiar name caught Fiona’s eye. Written in bright neon were the words ‘Moxxi’s Up Over Bar’.

Fiona stopped Rhys. “Wait, Moxxi, Mad Moxxi—we could talk to her!”

“How do you know Moxxi?”

“Does it matter?” Fiona dragged Rhys by the arm and pulled him into the entrance of the bar. 

It was dim inside, the buzz of the fluorescent lighting overhead almost imperceptible under the top 40 radio station playing over the speakers. A disco ball spun sluggishly over the empty dance floor, although the DJ booth was unoccupied. The air smelled strongly of floor cleaner, but the concrete was still sticky under their shoes.

Behind the counter, a B4R-BOT worked on constructing a pyramid of stacked shot glasses. They paid no attention to Fiona and Rhys until the pair approached the bar and Fiona cleared her throat.

“What can I get for you today? We’ve got an excellent selection of drinks.” The B4R-BOT gestured eagerly to the array of Moxxtails displayed on the bar. “And I’ve just updated my mixology module!”

“Hi, is Moxxi here? It’s important.” Fiona said. 

“I’m sorry, who is that?” The B4R-BOT looked at them blankly. 

“Isn’t this her bar? The ‘Up and Over’?”

The B4R-BOT placed their hands on the part of their rectangular chassis that best approximated their hips. “Listen, if you’re not going to buy a drink I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you both to leave.”

“Wait,” Rhys said. “Could I get a Hyperion martini?”

Fiona glared at him.

Rhys shrugged. “I miss good drinks. Sue me,” he said as he slid the money across the bar. “They aren’t exactly going to be making these in the future anymore.”

“Alright, we bought something. Are you honestly trying to tell me that you don’t know who Moxxi is? You know, the name on the sign?” Fiona turned her glare onto the B4R-BOT.

“Let me go get that drink ready for you.” The B4R-BOT rolled off to the far side of the bar and disappeared into the back room.

“Wait!”Fiona called out, but the B4R-BOT ignored her. “That was useless.”

“See what I said about CL4P-TPs?” Rhys asked, smirking.

Fiona scowled and stood up. “Let’s go.” 

Rhys stayed in his seat. “No way, I already gave that awful B4R-BOT my money.” 

“You can drink on your own time, Rhys. If we don’t find a way back, you can have all the martinis you want.”

“What’s a fine pair of people such as yourselves looking for in my bar so early in the day?” Moxxi appeared, seemingly from nowhere. She approached both of them and leaned forward over the counter. “Neither of you look like you came here just for a drink.”

“I did-”

“We’re looking for information,” Fiona interrupted, keeping her voice low.

“That doesn’t come cheap around here, depending on what you’d like to know.” She leaned back, grabbing a glass from behind the counter. Looking at Rhys, she asked, “Did you order something, sugar?”

“Uh, Hyperion martini,” Rhys said. “Please.”

Moxxi looked back at Fiona. “So, what kind of info are we talking about?”

“My friend and I are interested in something unusual.”

“What kind of unusual?” Moxxi cocked an eyebrow and looked between Rhys and Fiona. “I charge extra for the really weird stuff.” 

Rhys blushed and Fiona elbowed him hard, nearly unseating him. 

“Gross, Rhys,” she said.

Moxxi laughed.

“I wasn’t- you don’t know what I was thinking.” Rhys defended.

“Whatever you say, darling. Here’s your drink.” Moxxi placed the vividly colored martini on the bar. 

Cheeks nearly as bright as his drink, Rhys took a large gulp and pretended to be interested in the shot glass pyramid the B4R-BOT had left behind. 

Fiona narrowed her eyes, sighing. “Now that we’re done with that, I’m just going to cut to the chase.”

Moxxi leaned in closer.

“We’re looking for time travel tech.”

“Well, that’s still pretty fun.” Moxxi went on, “but it’s always the fun stuff that costs the most.”

“We don’t have too much money.” Rhys said.

“Sweetheart, it’s not necessarily money that I’m looking for. Someone made off with my Stingray and you two seem perfectly capable of taking it back. Bring it to me and I’ll point you in the direction of someone who might be able to help you out.”

“Do you know who stole it?” Fiona asked.

“Yeah, some dick named Nel. Last I heard he was hunkered down near Crisis Scar in Triton Flats right now. The Stingray’s red with grey and white trim- you can’t miss it.”

Rhys considered his drink as Fiona got up from the bar. “You wouldn’t happen to have to-go cups, would you?”


	8. Locked up in love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rhys and Timothy finally get to see more of each other!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought I'd let everyone know that I do take writing/art requests on tumblr. I'll probably try pretty much anything from Tales from the Borderlands or the Pre-Sequel, but if you see another fandom on my blog that you like, feel free to send a request from that too :3c You can find me here: http://officialc-3po.tumblr.com/

Leaving Concordia, Rhys and Fiona set out across the harsh moonscape in roughly the direction of Crisis Scar. The terrain here was identical to the crater-ridden lunar desert surrounding Spring’s place, a dusty wasteland that covered the entire moon. 

“Maybe we should have waited for Timothy to get that vehicle digistruct key,” Rhys said. “I think there’s moon dust in my suit.”

“Cheer up, Rhys. I’ve heard moon dust is supposed to be a good exfoliant.”

Rhys placed a hand gingerly on the gun holstered on his hip. 

“Fiona, I appreciate the sentiment of extra protection but did we really have to pull this gun out of the garbage? Couldn’t we have, I don’t know, spent actual money on a new one?”

“That’s a perfectly good gun,” Fiona said. 

“Somebody threw this away. What if it explodes in my hand or something?” 

Fiona glanced at the holstered pistol. “It’s a Tediore, isn’t that sort of the point?”

“Somehow I don’t think- Oh shit, what is that?” 

From behind the rim of a large crater ahead, a shuggurath emerged. Rathyds circled above it the sky, screeching. 

“Get ready, Rhys,” Fiona said.

She drew her weapon as Rhys fumbled with his own. Taking a few steps back, Rhys found himself on the rim of another crater. 

“Fiona,” he called. “Down here!” 

They both ducked into the crater. The shuggurath was fly towards them with surprising speed. 

“Rhys, help me out here!” Fiona cracked off another round of shots, only slowing the creature down incrementally. 

Aiming the gun, Rhys fired. The shuggurath was so close and so big that it was impossible to miss. Yet, somehow, the shot arced high above and beyond the creature.

“That’s the spirit,” Fiona yelled. “Keep trying!” 

The shuggurath screeched, seemingly starting to deflate. It lobbed a thick ball of corrosive spit in their direction.

Rhys jumped back, holding his cybernetic arm close to his chest. 

“Don’t stop,” Fiona said, “We’ve almost got it now!” 

Rhys squinted at the horizon. Was that another human off in the distance? A lone scav? “Is that?”

In its death throes the shuggurath careened through the air and collapsed in a heap in front of Timothy, who had just emerged from a nearby crater.

“I heard fighting over here, but it doesn’t look like you two need any help,” Timothy said, eyeing the prone pile of flesh.

Fiona pushed her gun back up her sleeve. “Nope, we had it all under control.”

“If anything, I’m glad to see both of you. I’ve been having trouble with those things by myself. Honestly I’ve also been having trouble with the scavs and the Lost Legion,” Timothy hesitated, “and Jack. Do you mind if I just tag along?”

“I’m not sure we need a third,” Fiona said. 

“Come on, Fiona. He’s a better shot than me, it couldn’t hurt to have him around,” Rhys replied.

“My moon buggy’s parked back there, I could at least drive you to wherever you’re going,” Timothy offered.

Rhys looked to Fiona.

“Fine,” Fiona shrugged.

\--

Fiona took the gunner’s seat and Rhys and Timothy sat in the front. 

Timothy drove fast, the moon buggy whipping past groups of scavs and moon wildlife, doing his best to avoid bullets and other projectiles.

“So you’re vault hunters, but Jack didn’t hire either of you, right? I overheard some things at Springs’ place, but not really enough to know who you are,” Timothy said. 

“That’s right.” Fiona replied, her voice coming in clear over their ECHOcomms. 

“So, you want the vault for yourselves?” Timothy said.

“No way,” Rhys crossed his arms. “In my experience, vaults aren’t worth all the trouble.” 

“Vault hunters that don’t hunt vaults,” Timothy said. “So, why are you here? Doesn’t seem like a good place for a honeymoon.” 

Rhys turned to look at Fiona in disbelief. She winked.

“We’re not together,” Rhys said. “I mean, we’re working together. But we’re not-”

Fiona felled a kraggon that was crossing their path. “I think he got it, sweetheart.”

Timothy laughed.

“I’m not sure if you’re going to believe me, but Rhys and I are from the future,” Fiona said.

“Hey, nothing’s impossible, right?” Timothy asked. “Hell, look at me, Hyperion made me externally identical to Jack in basically every way.”

“We opened a vault on Pandora and it sent us here,” Rhys continued.

“What was it like?” Timothy said, “Opening the vault, I mean.”

“There sure wasn’t any treasure.” Fiona took aim at a cluster of scavs to the left, but the buggy soon left them behind.

“Yeah, pretty underwhelming except for the whole time travel thing,” Rhys said, watching the scavs go by.

“So,” Timothy began hesitantly. “What’s happened in the future? Like, neither of you would happen to know any winning lottery numbers or suggestions for good investments, right?”

“I wouldn’t invest in Hyperion,” Rhys said.

“Maybe we should keep that to ourselves. I wouldn’t want you to go messing up the time stream because of something we said.” Fiona shot a glare at the back of Rhys’ head. 

“What happens to Hyperion?” Timothy glanced at Rhys, trying to keep his eyes on the road.

“Let’s just say that the value of their stock is going to plummet,” Rhys said. 

Fiona cleared her throat. 

“That’s all I was going to say.”

Timothy jerked the steering wheel roughly to the left, avoiding a kraggon that had jumped into their path. “That doesn’t sound very good for me. I don’t think Jack plans to pay me until I’m done and the contract says I have to do this for twenty years.”

“Wait, how long? What kind of student loans did you have?” Fiona fired off a few rounds, blasting the kraggon to into fiery chunks of rubble.

“I knew I should have gone to community college for the first two years. Instead I applied to this really prestigious place on Eunomia, ended up needing to take a few extra summer classes and an extra semester and suddenly I’m so in debt that I signed my life away to Hyperion!” Timothy laughed weakly. 

Fiona and Rhys shot each other a meaningful look. 

“Hey, so where do you think we should start looking for this guy for Moxxi?” Rhys asked.

Fiona looked across the rocky moonscape. “What about that place out there?”

She pointed out a heavily fortified structure, far out on the horizon, built into the side of a cliff.

Scanning it with his ECHOeye, Rhys spotted a red Stingray with grey and white trim out front, fastened to what looked like a large metal bike rack.

“I think that’s the place,” he said.

Timothy pulled up to the entrance and parked the moon buggy. As all of them got out, two armored turrets were deployed from the walls on either side of the door.   
“Watch out!” Timothy jumped behind the buggy for cover, followed closely by Fiona and Rhys.

The turrets opened fire, but the buggy absorbed the rain of bullets. 

“These things are going to be tough to crack,” Fiona said.

Timothy pulled a garishly yellow Hyperion pistol from his holster. “No worries, I picked up a gun with corrosive damage a little while ago.”

Peeking out from the safety of cover, Timothy fired a handful of acidic rounds at the turrets’ weak spots. Fiona unloaded a few clips while they were still hurting from the corrosive damage and Rhys fired off a few rounds too. 

The left turret gave first, exploding into a splash of ammunition and dollar bills. On its last breath, the right turret blasted the moon buggy into a burnt husk of its former self before promptly exploding as well.

“Well,” Timothy said, watching the crispy buggy chassis disintegrate, “I guess we’re walking to the closest digistruct station if we don’t manage to get that Stingray.”

Rhys approached the locked up Stingray, left eye glowing gold as he analyzed it. “Unless someone has a way to cut though the titanium lock around the front bumper here, I’m not sure that we’re going to get this thing free.”

“We’ll just take the bumper off. Moxxi won’t mind if it doesn’t come back in one piece, right?” Fiona asked.

“I’m thinking she might,” Timothy said.

“What are you ugly shits doing touching my Stingray?” A scav’s voice rang out loudly over the wall-mounted PA system.

“We’ve got good information saying that this isn’t yours,” Rhys replied.

“Oh, is Moxxi with you?” The scav asked.

“No, but we’re here for her Stingray so give us the key,” Fiona drew her gun from her sleeve.

“That’s not going to work. The only person I’ll give the key to is Moxxi.”

Fiona groaned. “Ugh, is this some kind of set up to get Moxxi to talk to you?” 

“Maybe,” said the scav. “But that’s not any of your business. Get out of here and tell Moxxi that if she wants her Stingray back she’ll have to come get it herself.”  
Timothy and Rhys looked at Fiona for direction. 

“If that creep thinks we’re not going in there to get that key ourselves, he’s got another thing coming,” she said.


	9. Getting the band back together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> we're back to Sasha and Vaughn!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> struggled a bit with this chapter -- i'm gearing up for some stuff that's much more fun in the next one though so stay tuned !! 
> 
> wanted to say thanks again not only to my lovely proofreader, featheryfire, whose excellent work i really appreciate, but also to the people who are leaving me comments+kudos because i appreciate them as well :)

“There, look!” Sasha pointed across the sandy clearing ahead of them. 

On the other side of the battlefield Athena crouched on a twisted fragment of the wreck, deflecting bullets with her shield and shooting down at the last remaining bandits. Closer to Sasha and Vaughn, a few of the Children of Helios were fighting off the bandits as well.

Sasha and Vaughn hid behind a jumble of crumpled metal ducting. Both of them managed a few good shots against the bandits before catching the attention of a badass. He charged at them with a feral yell, knocking some of the Children off their feet as he barreled through their ranks. 

Brandishing the Maliwan, Sasha took aim and unloaded the clip. Vaughn followed suit. As the badass approached both of them jumped out of his way. The Children had gotten back on their feet and regrouped, helping take down the badass. Covering each other as they needed to reload, Sasha and Vaughn kept at their attack. 

Having finished off the bandits on her end of the field, Athena leapt down from her perch. She threw her shield, hitting the badass squarely in the back of the head. He turned, growling incoherently, and focused his attention on Athena. 

Vaughn, in between Athena and the badass, was flung out of the way as the badass ran towards Athena. 

“Vaughn!” Sasha yelled, still firing the Maliwan.

The limping badass slowed down considerably. With a groan, he lashed out at Athena, but one of the Children fired the shot that finally took him out. 

As he fell, Sasha made her way to Vaughn, who was already sitting up.

“Are you hurt?” She asked, helping him up.

“Yeah, my shield absorbed most of the hit, fortunately,” he dusted himself off. “That certainly woke me up, though.”

Sasha smiled down at him, brushing some of the dirt out of his hair. “I’m glad you’re alright.” Turning, she looked over at the gathering Children. “Everyone else okay?”

“I think everyone’s fine,” one of the Children said. 

“Hey,” Athena called.

They turned to her as she approached. 

“Am I glad to see you two,” Athena said.

“Sorry we missed most of the action, we had a bit of trouble getting here,” Sasha said.

Vaughn shrugged, “cave-in.” 

“Again? Honestly, I don’t know why you had to set up in this death trap,” Athena shook her head. “It looks like the bandits are gone for now. I’m not sure why they were here. Just a normal supply raid, probably, but usually they do way more damage.”

“Do we have any idea what they took this time?” Vaughn asked. “We don’t keep too much stuff out in this section.”

“I didn’t see anything,” Athena said.

Zer0 leapt down from above, moving as soundlessly as silk. Vaughn wasn’t able to make them out very well in the darkness.

“I may have a lead/” they said, “regarding the location/of the stolen goods.”

Sasha addressed them, “Report, Zer0.”

“Vehicles sighted/moving south southeast from here/”

“Can we be sure that they’re the ones that took our stuff?” Vaughn asked.

“It appears that they have/strapped one of our/generators to the back/of their vehicle.”

Vaughn ran a hand through his hair. “Well, shit. Let’s go make sure that we have something to hook the generator up to when we get it back.”

Turning towards the Children, Sasha said, “Go get some runners ready at the southern entrance. After that, go back to the pavilion and look out for everyone while we’re gone.”

The Children left the battlefield and went off in the direction of the wreck’s refurbished Catch-a-Ride station. 

All of the vault hunters started off toward the computer room.

Athena spotted a few Children peeking out of hiding places in the wreck as they passed by the cooking pavilion. 

“Is it safe?” One of the Children asked.

“Everything seems quiet for now,” Athena replied. “Where’s Janey?”

“She was over there last I saw,” another one of the Children gestured across the pavilion.

“Janey?” Athena called. 

Janey appeared from behind a screen of rusting metal grating. “Is it alright for everyone to come out?”

“Seems like it,” Vaughn said.

“All clear!” Janey yelled.

Children of Helios poured out from seemingly everywhere. Within a few moments, the pavilion was teeming with activity again.

Wrapping her arm around Athena’s waist, Janey pulled her close. “They didn’t give you too much trouble, I hope?”

“Not at all,” Athena kissed Janey warmly. “But we’ve still got plenty to do tonight.”

Janey weaved her fingers into Athena’s hair. “What else is new?” She smiled. “I’m warning you though, be careful out there.”

“Always,” Athena said, letting Janey kiss her again before breaking the embrace.

“The rest of the Children will come back here when we’re gone to hold down the fort,” Vaughn said to Janey. 

“I’ll watch for them,” Janey said.

 

They left the pavilion and made their way into the deeper, more sheltered parts of the wreck to get to the computer room. Outside the door, several more of the armed Children of Helios stood watch. 

“Are the bandits gone?” One of the Children asked.

“For now,” Vaughn said. “Is Yvette here?”

“Yeah, she’s been checking on the computers.”

It was darker than usual in the computer room. The stolen generator was the Helios wreck’s only current power supply, since not much other than the computers ran on electricity. They used fire to light areas at night, since it was cheaper and easier to scrounge up wood or other flammable material than it was to make enough money to buy another solar generator. The Children of Helios had, to Vaughn’s complete surprise, been functioning relatively well without needing to regularly spend money. He didn’t anticipate that they would last forever without it, but so far the hunting-gathering lifestyle was working out unexpectedly well for them. 

Crouching on the floor, Yvette inspected a bundle of cables that ran along the far wall using the light of a torch. 

She turned as all of the vault hunters squeezed into the small room, holding the torch up to cast as much light as possible. 

“How do the computers look?” Vaughn asked.

Yvette shrugged, “It doesn’t seem like any of the bandits were in here, but I’ll be happier when we get that generator back.”

She looked around the room for a moment. 

“We are planning on getting it back, right?” Yvette asked.

“Oh yeah, absolutely,” Sasha said. “We can’t have anyone thinking that you can steal from us and get away with it.”


	10. I can't drive 55

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whats up i'm back with a new chapter !!
> 
> its been awhile but its been a big summer for me! i got a real adult job doing science after several months of otherwise fruitless applications and it kind of worn me down hardcore. as u might have seen i updated a few of my other fics but i was having a lot of trouble with this one uvu 
> 
> but here we are! enjoy :3c

At the southern entrance of the wreck of Helios, a runner and a bandit technical were fueled and prepared to give chase to the generator-stealing bandits. The truck bed of the technical held a crate of ammunition and a duffle bag full of other supplies. Vaughn and Sasha thanked the Children that had readied the vehicles and sent them back to the pavilion. 

Athena and Zer0 climbed into the runner, the headlights almost blindingly bright compared to the weak light from the torches. Zer0 sat up in the gunner’s seat, holding their sniper rifle on their lap and a scope. Their faceplate was blank as they indicated the direction of the bandits’ escape. 

While there was hardly anything of interest for miles surrounding the Helios wreck, there were a few rock formations, a handful of bandit camps, and a burned out old Atlas facility to the north. Mostly, there was just a bunch of sand. A whole desert’s worth, almost.

Vaughn drove the bandit technical and Sasha manned the gunner’s seat. Yvette sat in the truck bed and leaned on the roof of the cab, holding a pair of night vision binoculars.  
Curiously, Yvette looked at Zer0. “Don’t you need a pair of these too?” She asked, indicating to the binoculars.

“I’ve upgraded my/faceplate with a night vision/module, no thanks,” they said, tapping the visor of their faceplate with one gloved index finger  
.  
They drove out into moonlight washed grey desert. The bandits’ tire tracks were easy to discern in the light of the full moon 

“Does anyone see anything up ahead?” Athena asked. 

“I only see sand/” Zer0 said.

A lone skag froze in the beam of Athena’s headlights, its reflective eyes flashing brightly. Athena slammed on the brake. Zer0, not wearing a seatbelt, nearly flew out of the runner. 

Zer0 watched the skag disappear into the desert, “Why didn’t you just hit it?/” 

There was a touch of contempt in their distinctly nonhuman voice.

“Janey thinks they’re cute.” Athena knitted her eyebrows together, “I don’t know, I just reacted.”

“Over there,” Yvette yelled. “It looks like there’s tracks that go off away from the rest.”

Both vehicles came to a stop next to several sets of tire tracks that curved off sharply away from the well-worn sandy road.

“We can’t know that those are the ones we’re looking for,” Sasha replied. 

“These tire tracks look fresh/” Zer0 said.

“They look like a bandit technical’s too,” Vaughn offered. 

Yvette scanned the horizon with her night vision binoculars. “Hey, wouldn’t going south take us to that old diner? The one we take the Children to sometimes?”

“You don’t think that the bandits stopped for a midnight snack, do you?” Vaughn asked. 

Sasha laughed,“That’s not the most unlikely thing I’ve ever heard.”

Athena looked out over the tracks, gripping the wheel uncertainly. “Should we follow them? I don’t think it’s a good idea to split up, in case there’s a fight.”

“It’s the best clue we have,” Yvette said. 

The others nodded in agreement.

“I say we go for it,” Sasha said.

Vaughn stepped on the gas and the technical rolled off the road and into the sand. In the runner, Athena and Zer0 weren’t far behind.

They drove away from the road for nearly an half an hour before the diner appeared on the horizon.

Known as “Skaggie’s”, the building was a squat, gritty little place with sand in the corners and grisly, dead-eyed trophies of the animals they served on the walls. The food, though, was hot and cheap and good enough to forgive most of its flaws in the eyes of the Children. 

Helios, even after the crash, had been crammed to the rafters with loose cash. The Children didn’t end up using much of it, since they were so far from civilization. After the corporate free-for-all that had dominated the culture of Hyperion, the Children were happy to settle into a lifestyle without money. As a whole they made the occasional purchase, like the generator, but day-to-day they lived off the land.

Skaggie’s, however, was the occasional exception.

As they approached, Yvette reported that she could see cars out front.

“It appears that there’s/something on top of that vehicle,” Zer0 said.

“Does it look like the generator?” Vaughn asked.

“It’s too far away, I can’t tell,” Yvette replied.

They approached the diner quickly, bouncing over the dunes. 

“The generator,” Zer0 said.

As the runner and the technical closed in on the sandy rectangle that served as the diner’s parking lot, a group of satisfied looking, masked bandits made their way out of the restaurant carrying doggy bags.

“Shit, boss, is that them?” One of the bandits asked loudly.

The bandits rushed over to their cars, dropping their doggy bags. A half-eaten portion of spaghetti burst from its container, greasy noodles splatting limply against the hood of one of the cars. Several meatballs rolled sadly across the parking lot. The leader, sporting an impressive green mohawk, took the wheel of the car with the generator strapped to the top and stepped on the gas.

The bandit’s car surged forward aggressively.

“Come on, boys,” the leader roared. “If we don’t protect this generator we won’t have any way to power the fridge to keep our popsicles cold!” 

The other bandits rushed after their leader, “For the Dreamsicles!”

“It’s always something with bandits, isn’t it?” Athena sighed as she stepped on the gas. 

The bandits headed out into a featureless grey expanse, their tires kicking up clouds of grit. 

Sasha aimed the technical’s gun before calling out a reminder to Yvette, “Careful where you shoot, we don’t want to damage the generator!”

Leaning over the cab of the technical, Yvette steadied her gun as well.

Both of them shot a salvo of bullets into the backs of the closest bandit cars. The rightmost car’s tire exploded and spun off.

Zer0 took aim with their sniper rifle, unruffled in spite of the erratic jerking of the runner.

In the gunner’s seat, one of the bandits fired several shots into the hood of technical. Vaughn forced the car out of the way, jostling Sasha and Yvette.

“Take them out, Zer0,” Yvette yelled, crouched in the bed of the technical.

With impeccable aim, they took out the driver of one of the cars on the left. The dead driver’s foot never left the gas pedal, causing the car to careen off the road. As sped over the crest of a sand dune, the car flew through the air and flipped over.

Now, the only bandit cars left were the leader’s and one full of underlings. 

“Muffler, they’re gaining on us!” One of the bandits reported to his leader.

“Well, get rid of them then!” Muffler replied. 

Muffler’s car revved, taking position in front while the other car covered his rear.

The bandit in the gunner’s seat fired a line of bullets into the hood of Vaughn’s technical. A handful of rounds broke through the windshield. A single bullet embedded itself into Vaughn’s pauldron with a loud crunch. The others ricocheted off the car’s chassis and into the desert. 

Vaughn yelped, his hands flying off the steering wheel for a moment.

“Vaughn?” Sasha twisted around. 

The technical swerved, but Vaughn regained control before the vehicle drifted against Athena’s runner or rolled off the road.

“I’m alright,” he replied shakily. “That’s going to leave one hell of a bruise, though.”

The bandits released another hail of bullets into the vault hunters’ cars. Zer0 and Sasha ducked down low into the gunner’s seats and Yvette crouched in the truck bed.  
Staying low, Zer0 lined up another shot. Pulling the trigger, the bullet veered slightly to the side this time. Instead of hitting its target, the bullet shattered the driver’s side window and windshield. A spray of blue-grey glass particles burst into the air.

Taking the bandit driver’s near-death experience as an opportunity, Athena sped up to close the gap between their vehicles. Zero lined up another shot.

The bullet hit home this time, but the bandit in the passenger seat quickly took over the steering wheel. The new driver flipped them off through the broken window.

Zer0 fired, missing the driver’s arm, and the bullet bounced harmlessly off the car. The driver quickly retracted his arm. 

Sasha managed to shoot one of the bandit car’s tires, but despite the flat the car kept driving. A round of bullets from the bandits knocked out one of the headlights of Athena’s runner. 

With a replying burst of gunfire, Sasha took out the bandit manning the gunner’s seat. She aimed at the driver as well, but the large, brutish gun didn’t afford her enough accuracy to get in a good hit.

Ahead of them, a large rock was planted firmly in the sand. 

Carefully taking aim, Zer0 lined up another shot. They pulled the trigger, but the sniper rifle only let out an unsatisfying “click”.

“My gun has run dry/” They said remorsefully.

“Zer0,” Athena said. “Hold on tight!”

She steered the runner toward the bandit car, overtaking Vaughn’s technical. Aggressively, she rammed the runner against the side of the other car. 

Unable to steer away, the bandit smashed into the rock protruding out of the sand. 

Muffler leaned out of his own car window, one hand on the wheel, and watched as his last underling’s car wrapped itself around the rock.

Not paying attention, Muffler drove the rear wheel of his car over a recently ripened lone firemelon. The melon burst like a water balloon under the weight of the car, spraying liquid that ignited upon contact with the air. The subsequent explosion nearly upended Muffler’s car.

The car flipped and somehow landed back on its tires. Vaughn urged the technical forward, overtaking Muffler’s now-stopped car and coming to a stop himself before it. The runner came to a stop behind Muffler’s car.

“Give up and we’ll let you live,” Sasha said, training the barrel of the technical’s mounted gun on the bandit leader. 

Muffler put up his hands, “We just wanted some popsicles.” 

The vault hunters loaded the generator into the bed of the truck and left Muffler with his scorched car in the desert.

“Well I don’t know about anybody else,” Yvette said, “but I could use a hot meal right about now. Who wants to get dinner at Skaggie’s?”

“Are you paying?” Vaughn asked.

“Hell no.”


	11. In this city of robot hearts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the moon gang finds some weird stuff and there's pizza too

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey everyone ! this is probs otherwise going to turn into a chp-a-month fic BUT the next chapter is already half done bc i was actually going to release chp 11 as one big one but i think it flows better if i end it here and turn the other half into the next chp! so, the next chp is sooner than later but after that its probably 100% just going to be one chapter every couple weeks :) but i've got no intentions of stopping!
> 
> a big loud THANKS to featheryfire again for editing this when i was over visiting her for the weekend !!

“Are you sure about this? We don’t have to go into a bandit’s den, Fiona. We could just respawn a copy of Moxxi’s Stingray. It wouldn’t be an exact copy but, red’s red, isn’t it?”

“Do you want Moxxi to help us get back home or what?” Fiona stepped through the gate.

Timothy and Rhys looked at each other for support. Fiona had already taken several steps inside before they followed her in.

The space immediately inside the gate was small, a narrow hallway with a few doors and stacks of heavy-looking crates. 

Rhys crunched through the scattered debris of one of the destroyed turrets.

“That’s the last thing I needed,” he said grimly. “Shrapnel in my nice shoes.”

“Stop minding your outfit and start minding your gun,” Fiona said. 

A single bullet embedded itself in the sand between Fiona’s feet. Before she could look up, another dozen bullets tore up the ground around her, flinging up gritty clouds of sand.

“Nice shooting, assholes,” she yelled, then jumped behind a stack of cargo crates with Timothy. Rhys ducked into a nerby doorway, the oxygen barrier shimmering as he passed through it.

A brazen bandit sprinted ahead of the others, swinging their axe as if it was a net and they were an avid lepidopterist let loose in a butterfly house. 

“I’ve got a clear shot!” Rhys called, stepping out of the safety of the doorway. 

A bullet ricocheted off of his cybernetic arm with a metallic clang. Rhys held up his gun and shot wildly, hitting the bandit in their axe arm. As the bandit’s axe fell to the ground, a stray bullet shattered the delicate membrane of Rhys’ Oz kit. The cloud of oxygen around his head disappeared into the airless vacuum of space. Suddenly short of breath, he stumbled backwards and fell through the oxygen barrier and landed on his back. 

The bandit skidded on their heels and changed direction, barreling towards Rhys. Despite the close range, the bandit was moving too quickly for Fiona to get a fatal shot. 

Rhys took aim and fired, dispatching the already weakened bandit. 

Ahead of them, the bandits had taken defensible positions. The cargo crates were already well-riddled with bullet holes and a few rounds took chunks out of the doorway.

Fiona peeked over the edge of the crate. Timothy leaned out of cover to get a better angle, letting his shield protect him from the hail of bullets.

Oz kit replenished, Rhys crawled forward to join the fray.

They killed all the bandits and it was cool. 

“That wasn’t too hard,” Fiona said, picking through the loot scattered around the hall.

The three of them check the rest of the rooms, but they were empty.

The door at the very end of the hall led into a large room filled with metalworking and soldering equipment that looked like it had once been a series of garages.

It was eerily empty.

“Looks like there might be something interesting in here,” Timothy said, his voice echoing around them. 

Fiona and Rhys turned to see what he was talking about. The room Timothy stood in the doorway of was dim inside, the only light coming from a nearly burnt-out desk lamp. There were multiple desks inside, covered in a mixture of half taken-apart electronics and half-finished slices of pizza.

“What do you think they were doing?” Rhys asked.

Timothy stepped gingerly over a dense pile of heatsinks and pepperoni. “It doesn’t look like it was anything good.”

Under a pile of greasy boxes Fiona found an ECHOlog, but the recorded message wasn’t anything more than a rambling list of electronic parts that Nel wanted to order online.

Returning to the large garage, the three of them ventured deeper into the base.

“Where is everyone?” Timothy asked. “Usually there’s way more bandits in places like this.”

“It’s almost as if Nel really didn’t want to keep us out,” Fiona said. 

As they moved farther along in the garage, the tables were increasingly more cluttered with old bits of cybernetic hardware.

On the next set of tables were entire cybernetic limbs, hollowed out for parts. Dusty rainbows of cables hung out of the limbs at every conceivable angle, their frazzled copper innards hastily cut. 

Rhys made a face, holding his arm defensively, “I hope he just ordered all this stuff online.”

Posters advertising a variety of different events at Moxxi’s Underdome on Pandora covered the walls farther in There was a door in the far wall at the end of the garage with leaflets promoting the Up and Over bar were plastered all over it. 

“It’s starting to look not very good, isn’t it?” Timothy asked.

“Nowhere to go but straight ahead,” Fiona replied. 

She opened the door slowly.

Inside was a sleeping space much nicer than the ones they’d seen earlier on. Or maybe not nicer, but certainly bigger. 

There were more pictures of Moxxi on the walls and an array of robot parts scattered across every surface, including the bed. 

“Maybe I’m just not familiar enough with bandit hideouts, but it seems like it was a bit too easy to get in here,” Rhys said. 

“No, you’re right. Something’s off,” Timothy replied. 

“Take a good look around,” Fiona told them.

They split the room up into three sections and dug around through the piles of trash and old food. Rhys did his very best not to step on or otherwise interact with any of the stray cybernetic scraps. 

Timothy peeled several posters off the wall, but there was only bare concrete underneath. 

Kicking a heap of wires out of the way, Fiona noticed something in one of the corners of the room. Shifting more of the junk aside, she uncovered a small trapdoor set into the dirty floor. 

She silently signaled for Timothy and Rhys to come over. Pressing a finger to her lips, she placed a hand on her gun and opened the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> apparently chrome/ao3 spellcheck doesn't recognize "lepidopterist" as a word and thats a dingy dang shame


End file.
